Excommunication in Jewish Babylonia: ComparingBavli Mo‘ed Qaṭan14b–17b and the Aramaic Bowl Spells in a Sasanian Context

Abstract

According to rabbinic literature of late antiquity, a Jew could be excommunicated or banished from the community for around twenty-four spiritual and social violations. The Talmuds’ list of sins that necessitated the separation of a transgressor includes, for instance, profaning the name of God, selling forbidden meat, insulting one's master, and obstructing justice. Once condemned, the sinner was physically isolated from other people and prohibited from the same actions that a mourner was, such as cutting one's hair or wearing phylacteries. After the sinner repented or a certain amount of time passed, the ban was then lifted, typically by the master who had initiated it. Indeed, the master-disciple relationship is often at the center of banning and cursing in rabbinic literature. Although the rabbinic concept of excommunication draws from earlier biblical and Second Temple precedents, such as the book of Ezra, it is in many ways a late antique innovation featuring prominently in Babylonia. The reason that bans and excommunication emerge as a salient feature of Jewish society in this period is related to the rabbis’ historical contexts within Roman Palestine and Sasanian Babylonia. As I show in this article, exegesis and history both played a role in the formation of the talmudic laws of banishment.